alt Hacker NewsThe source of the UB is dereferncing a null pointer. I don't think it's possible to obtain a null reference otherwise. I, on the other hand, ignore people who advise against using references for parameters that can't be nullable. Particularly const references, which provide potentially massive performance improvements, and are a core idiom in C++.
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aw1621107 • today at 6:18 AM
> Particularly const references, which provide potentially massive performance improvements
My understanding was that const references don't provide that much in the way of optimization opportunities (if any?) due to aliasing and the existence of const_cast.
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Somewhere you have a null and somewhere you want to call a function on it (by mistake). Whether you call it through the pointer or convert the pointer to a reference and then call it through the reference makes no difference, the program still has UB. You can't even argue that the UB occurs at a different point in the program - that makes no difference because UB is allowed to time-travel.
Didn't they say they use references when the pointer/reference should be invisible?